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The Upright Piano Player (2010)

por David Abbott

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2695697,974 (3.6)1 / 51
Fiction. Literature. Thriller. HTML:An adroit first novel of exceptional grace and emotional power by a legendary British ad executive.

??David Abbott??s The Upright Piano Player is a wise and moving debut, an accomplished novel of quiet depths and resonant shadows.? ??John Burnham Schwartz, author of The Commoner and Reservation Road


Henry Cage seems to have it all: a successful career, money, a beautiful home, and a reputation for being a just and principled man. But public virtues can conceal private failings, and as Henry faces retirement, his well-ordered life begins to unravel. His ex-wife is ill, his relationship with his son is strained to the point of estrangement, and on the eve of the new millennium he is the victim of a random violent act which soon escalates into a prolonged harassment.
 
As his ex-wife's illness becomes grave, it is apparent that there is little time to redress the mistakes of the past. But the man
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Mostrando 1-5 de 55 (siguiente | mostrar todos)
This work of literary fiction is a striking debut. Abbott gives us the story of Henry Cage, a successful businessman who seems to have it all: a fine home, a successful career, and a reputation for being a principled and upstanding man. But his outward success hides personal failure. Just as he has retired, his ex-wife has moved to America, his relationship with his only son is strained to the point of estrangement, and he’s the victim of a random act of violence which escalates into a long-term stalking and harassment.

There are small glimmers of hope for Henry, just as there are set-backs. He learns his ex-wife is quite ill, and he agrees to visit her in Florida, and he begins to repair his relationship with his son and to get to know and love his grandson. But he remains alone and separate, even when with those he holds dear.

One thing that did bother me, however, was how Abbott structured the tale. He begins with a chapter set in 2004. We witness Henry’s reactions to a tragedy. Then he goes back to 1999. This kind of foreshadowing is done frequently, but somehow Abbott’s use of this structure left me with more questions than answers. ( )
  BookConcierge | Dec 13, 2021 |
David Abbott is regarded as one of the finest advertising copywriters of his generation. As a young graduate back in the 80s, I remember the thrill of being offered a student placement at his agency Abbott Mead Vickers, along with my then creative partner. We were in our final year at art school and had set our sights on a career as a creative team in one of London’s creative advertising agencies. Luckily for us, one of AMV’s senior art directors had graduated from our college (Maidstone College of Art), so it only took a letter from one of our tutors to this former student to secure our two-week placement.

On arriving at the allotted hour, we were ushered up to the creative floor of a recently refurbished building that had that distinctive new building smell. Everything was grey and black, which was the height of chic back in the late 80s. In fairness, it would still look sophisticated today. We had our own sizeable office for two weeks. But the greatest disappointment to befall us was that the great man himself was on holiday and would not return until we had departed. So there would be no chance to contrive an impromptu meeting with him in the company lift of a morning.

Abbott had cemented his reputation for writing memorable press ads for the likes of Volvo, Sainsbury’s, The Economist and Chivas Regal, to name but a few. But he was equally at home writing TV commercials, and his famous ‘J R Hartley’ TV commercial has gone down in advertising folklore as one of the UK’s best loved commercials.

This said, he will always be remembered for witty headlines; and cogent, eloquent and perfectly structured copy. I remember one of his very long headlines for Chivas Regal that fuelled a lively argument at college. Some of us felt it was truly heartfelt while others found it overly sentimental and cloying. The press ad ran on Father’s Day and read as follows:

Because I’ve known you all my life.
Because a red Rudge bicycle once made me the happiest boy on the street.
Because you let me play cricket on the lawn.
Because you used to dance around the kitchen with a tea-towel round your waist.
Because your cheque book was always busy on my behalf.
Because our house was always full of books and laughter.
Because of countless Saturday mornings you gave up to watch a small boy play rugby.
Because you never expected too much of me or let me get away with too little.
Because of all the nights you sat working at your desk while I lay sleeping in my bed.
Because you never embarrassed me by talking about the birds and the bees.
Because I know there’s a faded newspaper clipping in your wallet about my scholarship.
Because you always made me polish the heels of my shoes as brightly as the toes.
Because you’ve remembered my birthday 38 times out of 38.
Because you still hug me when we meet.
Because you still buy my mother flowers.
Because you’ve more than your fair share of grey hairs and I know who helped put them there.
Because you’re a marvellous grandfather.
Because you made my wife feel one of the family.
Because you wanted to go to McDonalds the last time I bought you lunch.
Because you’ve always been there when I’ve needed you.
Because you let me make my own mistakes and never once said. “I told you so.”
Because you still pretend you only need glasses for reading.
Because I don’t say thank you as often as I should.
Because it’s Father’s Day.
Because if you don’t deserve Chivas Regal, who does?

Abbott later admitted that the ad was, in fact, a love letter to his own father. Whether you like it or not (I happen to like it), it’s a lovely example of Abbott's perceptiveness and his ability to tap into the way we humans think and feel. And it’s this emotive and powerful line of reasoning that imbues all his copy, whether he’s writing about crumple zones on Scandinavian cars or the health benefits of a Liga baby rusk.

When in 1998, he announced his retirement from the agency he founded in order to take up a new career as an author, none of us gasped in surprise. Here was a man who was already writing the most exquisite prose, albeit in a truncated form. And plenty of other copywriters had taken the plunge before him. Copywriters who certainly hadn’t received the kind of recognition Abbott had. There had been Fay Wheldon ( ‘Go to work on an egg’). There had been Peter Mayle (‘Nice one Cyril’ for Wonderloaf bread). And there had been Salman Rushdie (who readily admits to penning ‘naughty but nice’ for fresh cream cakes).

Admittedly, it took some while to complete his first work of fiction, but in 2010 Abbott’s debut novel ‘The Upright Piano Player’ finally hit the shelves. And quite some novel it is. It was clearly a labour of love as every line has been so well-considered and beautifully honed. Lines like this: Designer gowns from a former era, lovingly preserved in polythene, hang uneasily on bodies that have had no such luck. The book is peppered with such lines, yet the narrative is brisk and not the least bit laboured. And, of course, there’s that sharp perceptiveness about human nature and the little observations that lift the writing to another level. We also get a real feeling for the characters themselves through Abbott’s sharp ear for dialogue.

The story itself is an incredibly sad one and is structured like a Kurt Vonnegut novel starting at the end. But in all other respects, it is as far apart from a Vonnegut novel as you could possibly get. Many reviewers have compared the writing to Ian McEwan, and it’s a fair comparison. What is abundantly clear is that ‘The Upright Piano Player’ is an accomplished novel that is as deserving of shelf space as any novel I’ve read in the English language. As a debut novel, it’s remarkable.

The story’s protagonist, one Henry Cage is a perfectly affable character on the surface. He has enjoyed a successful career as the founder of his own management consultancy business. But on retirement, it becomes clear that Cage’s personal life is anything but perfect. As the novel progresses, Abbott allows us to peek into Cage’s family dynamics and the fracturing of relationships, which could so easily have been averted. Added into the mix is a string of random incidents that have truly devastating consequences and are well beyond Cage’s control. Together the sequence of events makes for a tragedy of epic proportions and demonstrates the fragility of life. But don’t be put off. The narrative is utterly compelling, and you really do want to spend time in Henry Cage’s company. He is sharp, witty and likeable, if a bit obstinate and set in his ways. The closing line to the novel is utterly heartbreaking, as we know from the very first page how this story ends. And that’s another aspect that I think works so well with this novel. The way it has been structured is really clever. We know from page one how it ends but we don’t quite know how it gets there. But when we do finally get there and everything has been unravelled, the emotional punch of the very last page is enormous and gut-wrenching because we know that the last page isn’t actually the last page.

Having retired from advertising myself and written a couple of self-published novels, I have only just got round to reading ‘The Upright Piano Player’. But I am baffled by the fact that this fine book has received so few reviews on Amazon - no more than a paltry 38 ratings in ten years. My own self-published scribblings have notched up twice as many ratings in ten months. But I’d be the first to admit that my writing pales in comparison. So why on earth isn’t anyone reading this fine book that has been published, I might add, by a mainstream publisher (Quercus)? Am I and those 38 other reviewers on Amazon the only people to rate ‘The Upright Piano Player’ as a terrific read? Surely not.

I speak up for David Abbott’s novel not simply because I believe it to be an extraordinarily beautiful book, but because David Abbott cannot speak up for himself. He very sadly passed away rather suddenly and unexpectedly in 2014. He was one of the very few advertising men whose obituary made it into the national newspapers as well as the BBC news. This said, his debut novel only appeared as a foot-note among the reams of newsprint devoted to his contribution to British creative advertising. And yet this novel is undoubtedly his crowning achievement. The Guardian rightly described it as ‘a beautifully constructed debut.’ The saddest thing about ‘The Upright Piano Player’ is that it’s Abbott’s first and last foray into the world of literary fiction. We shan’t see any other novels from this hugely gifted and overlooked author.
Alex Pearl is author of 'Sleeping with the Blackbirds' and 'The Chair Man' ( )
  AlexPearl | Nov 23, 2020 |
Review 'This is a fine, sensitive, moving book - a remarkable first novel' Justin Cartwright. '(A) beautifully constructed debut' Catherine Taylor, Guardian. 'The menace simmering beneath the surface of its prose is compelling' Hephzibah Anderson, Daily Mail. 'Elegant, rich and gratifying' Claire Beale, Independent. 'It is beautifully written, the sentences polished like gems - but it is the book's substances that sticks in the mind' Anthony Capella. Product Description Henry Cage seemed to have it all. A successful business career, considerable wealth, and a reputation for being a just and principled man. But public virtues can conceal private failings, and as Henry faces retirement, his well-ordered life begins to unravel. On the eve of the new millennium he is the victim of a random act of violence which soon escalates into a prolonged persecution, with tragic consequences. Family secrets are revealed, and when his ex-wife Nessa summons Henry to Palm Beach, he realises that there is little time to redress the mistakes of the past. The Upright Piano Player explores with a tender, yet unflinching eye the small but devastating flaws in human nature that can shape our destinies.
  buffygurl | Mar 8, 2019 |
The writing in this novel is exquisite, which is fitting, because for most of it the characters bear the exquisite pain of loss--disappointment, disillusionment, divorce, death. It should be very depressing, and some readers have found it so. But there's a bit of distance between the reader and the characters that makes it all bearable...not quite clinical, but not heart-breaking either. The book begins with a funeral, and we soon learn of a senseless, guilt-inducing tragedy that has befallen Henry Cage and his family. From there we sail back and forth in time to the early years of Henry's career and marriage, to his estrangement from his wife and son, in fact to a life seemingly dominated by sadness and loneliness. There are moments of grace and reconciliation in it, but they take us only so far. The future events of that first chapter, scarcely mentioned again, hang over the rest of the book like a shroud ready to settle down over the family. What are we to take from it all? I'm not sure. But I am not at all sorry to have read it. What does the title mean? I can't answer that one either. There are two passing references to Henry's piano, which don't suggest anything to me. And the music of jazz pianist Bill Evans creeps into the story from time to time, but again, not enough to warrant the title. This is one of those books that parks itself in your head and won't move out, despite being very difficult to describe. ( )
  laytonwoman3rd | Mar 1, 2019 |
I felt this book had a few really great moments but quite a lot of rather ordinary material. Henry dealing with the death of his grandson and his daughter-in-law's response early on in the book was definitely a strong part for me. I can see how Abbott has tried to fit that into other stories about death, violence and crime, but to me the book didn't really work as a whole. Perhaps there were too many points the author was trying to make? Perhaps a plot line that stretches the boundaries of believability? Nonetheless, it was a reasonably entertaining read, even if a Man Booker isn't going to come Abbott's way for this work. Not sure if I would read his next novel, had he lived to finish it. I mean, would you read the work of an advertising copywriter by choice? ( )
  oldblack | Sep 15, 2018 |
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Fiction. Literature. Thriller. HTML:An adroit first novel of exceptional grace and emotional power by a legendary British ad executive.

??David Abbott??s The Upright Piano Player is a wise and moving debut, an accomplished novel of quiet depths and resonant shadows.? ??John Burnham Schwartz, author of The Commoner and Reservation Road


Henry Cage seems to have it all: a successful career, money, a beautiful home, and a reputation for being a just and principled man. But public virtues can conceal private failings, and as Henry faces retirement, his well-ordered life begins to unravel. His ex-wife is ill, his relationship with his son is strained to the point of estrangement, and on the eve of the new millennium he is the victim of a random violent act which soon escalates into a prolonged harassment.
 
As his ex-wife's illness becomes grave, it is apparent that there is little time to redress the mistakes of the past. But the man

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